Back cover photo 2014 Matthew Chase-Daniel
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
2014 Karen Chase
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Printed in the United States of America
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Chase, Karen.
Polio boulevard : a memoir / Karen Chase.
pages cm. (Excelsior editions.)
ISBN 978-1-4384-5282-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Chase, Karen BlockHealth. 2. PoliomyelitisPatientsNew York (State)New YorkBiography. 3. New York (N.Y.)Biography. I. Title.
RC180.C48 2014
616.835dc23
2013039419
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Richard Block, Maggi Walker, and Patsy Ostroy, and to the memory of my parents, Lil and Zenas BlockBEDS
Everything leads me back to my polio days now. Last week I drove to a used bookstore on back roads to pick up a biography of Jonas Salk. I noticed a junky antique store, pulled over, puttered through. An old piece of furniture was chained to the stores side porcha hospital bed from upstate, where there had been a tuberculosis sanatorium long ago. It was oak and painted a darkish green. The works that made it go up and down were cast iron, and they were painted green too. The springs were spiraling. I fell in love with the bed and bought it.
The next morning, Memorial Day, I woke at six to meet the fellow who delivered the bed in his pickup. He unloaded it, I gave him a check, he left. I dragged the hose out, filled a pail with soapy water, scrubbed the thing down, and let it dry in the rising sun. The foam mattress in the basement just fit. I put a rose-colored sheet on it and dragged the bed under the maple tree. The day was just beginning.
Lying on this not-just-any bed brings me back to how full of motion the world was as I watched it from my polio bed. Everything but me seemed to be moving. I was immobilized in New York, high up on a hospital ward overlooking the East River. I was horizontal, covered in plaster, couldnt get out of bed, couldnt sit, couldnt walk. I was flat. I had a view of the river, and what I did was watch.
I watched boats pass from morning to night. I watched smoke billowing out of huge smokestacks, cars heading south on the FDR Drive, cars heading north, a helicopter flying across the sky, a jet carving a diagonal line across the blue as it took off from LaGuardia, boats moving, water moving. I watched the rivers current.
One day I was looking out the window when a submarine surfaced right in front of the hospital. It was sunny, Im sure of it, and slowly the sub rose from the water. A bunch of uniformed sailors appeared on deck. Airy and light, it was the sight of victory.
From my bed, I would look out the window across the river to Queens as morning came. It would be barely dark. A light bulb would go on in a window and cast a sweet orange gleamartificial, antiquated. Id wonder about the person who turned the light onwhy were they getting up so early, where were they going? I always had them going. Theyd be going and Id be watching.
Its taken me decades to walk over to my desk, sit down once and for all, and write about what happened when I was a ten-year-old girl with polio.
Here I go. Its November. Its 1953. My family is living in the well-to-do village of Larchmont, New York, on Long Island Sound. Im in fifth grade.
For lunch Mom makes me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich cut in the shape of a house. When Im done, instead of heading back to school, I go lie down on the bed in the TV room.
Im resting, which I never do. I dont even feel like watching TV. Look. Theres one leg up in the air. My leg, I keep looking at it, I like looking at it. Maybe it hurts. Maybe it feels rusty or something. Ill say it hurts, and maybe I can stay home this afternoon. I dont want to give that book report.
My knees are skinned. When I was little, I used to sneak down near the beach with Jimmy Keenan. We liked to climb up on the roof of an old brick garage, jump off onto the ground. Sometimes my knees got scraped, and my legs got bruised.
I like my legs. I dont know why. Theyre just legs, but just legs is great. I like the bones of them, how they join. Some people talk about legs that are particularly long. My mothers are particularly bony. Mine arent particularly anything.
I just swallowed, I noticed I swallowed. Just did it again. The back of my throat feels small and getting smaller.
I looked at the clock a few minutes ago. Now I look at it again, but the minute hand has hardly moved. I can hear my baby sister fooling around outside.
I better get up, Ive got to start back to school. Today is going so slowly. I wait for minutes to pass. Look at the clock. Ow ow owmy leg does kind of hurt. But after school, Patsy and I are going to bike to Flint Park.
Its the next day. The doctor comes into my room. He helps me sit on the edge of my bed. He opens his black bag, takes out a rubber mallet. Tap. He taps my knee. My leg does not move.
In the hospital, all I wanted to do was go home. People said, Do this, do that, and I had to do it.
Time for hot packs, a nurse would say.
No. I want to go home.
Id sleep all the time, wake up not knowing what day it was, not knowing if days or hours had passed.
Everyone was talking. Talking in the hall, nurses talking, doctors talking, visitors. I hated that sound.
Footsteps in the hallare my parents here? Im burning, my bodys hurting, Im nothing, a blank buzz of sleep.
Strawberry milkshake, I said to my father. When he brought it, I couldnt stand the smell. The pink made me sick.
One day I asked for a book. The nurse said, Wait a minute. She came back with an Archie and Veronica comic. When I tried to hold it, it dropped.
Darling, my mother wrote to me in the hospital three months after I got sick.
I just heard the GOOD NEWSyou are standing and getting into the wheel chair alone.
I know this made you happy as it did me. Honey, this is another important hurdle youve jumped. I have a hunch (unofficial) you are on the homeward stretch.
Try very hard honey.
Well so long. Ill see you SundayI cant wait either.
Your Ma
